Sunday, 29 March 2015

Awkward first post coming up, sorry. I'll probably edit things, change things round and make it all look more impressive once I get used to having a blog and have an idea of what I'm doing, but in the meantime: Hi, my name's Amy, or amylu. The blog name, Amy Bobbins, was my Mum's nickname for me when I was very little, and I thought it fitted well with the sewing and crafting theme.

I've been hand sewing for a couple of years, sewing on buttons, altering things (I'm 5'1'', so I've done a fair bit of basic altering!) and fixing things that were falling apart or looking worn. I liked the idea of sewing, and knew we had a sewing machine somewhere at my parents' house, but we never got around to finding it. I didn't really get going with sewing or know where to start, and then I got into jewellery making and card making and other crafts, so sewing took a bit of a backseat.

Then this year, I watched the Great British Sewing Bee, and really enjoyed it. It made me want to sew again, and straight after watching the first episode I went online to start looking at patterns and I joined Pinterest, then I had a good sort through my sewing box (hopefully more on that later), and asked my parents if we could look for the sewing machine again.

Yesterday I went home for a good long day of tidying, hoping we'd find the sewing machine my Mum used in the 80s and 90s. I'm not sure what make it is, but I know it's there, and Mum has said she's happy for me to have it, when we find it. Dad went searching, and called me to say he'd found a machine for me. What turned up was not Mum's plastic modern machine...but this absolute beauty:

This is the most beautiful sewing machine I have ever seen. Mum and I danced round the landing a fair bit when we saw it, I had no idea it was even there! At first, I thought it must have belonged to my Grandma or my Great Auntie Joyce, and guessed a date of the 1950s. Then I found a wonderful online blog to date it, and it turns out that this machine is a Singer 28k and was made in 1908. I was rather speechless when I found that out! My best guess now is that it was probably more of the family sewing machine, used by all the women in the family (Great Grandma and her three daughters) until it came up to the Midlands with my Great Aunt in the 1970s.

It seems to be in fully working condition, as far as I can tell, and it's still threaded, again most likely by my Great Aunt, who was very careful and precise with keeping things just-so. The panel-bit in the box is full of spare parts that look a bit terrifying, a few bits of cloth to test stitches on, and one spare needle. That's as far as my limited knowledge goes at the moment, so now I've got a lot of learning and reading to do!

I'm very excited to get using this lovely machine, and I will try my best to document my findings and adventures with it as I learn. I am overjoyed to have been given it, and I am going to look after it the best I can. I'll also try to post here about any other crafts I do and things I make, but everything is a work in progress at the moment; I'm still learning with sewing, crafting, and with using Blogger, so please bear with me.

Oh, and also, I've seen on my searches of the internet this morning that people tend to give their vintage/antique sewing machines names. So, say hello to Rose, named after my Great Grandma.